Known in the art is a container for transporting piece goods along pipe-lines of pneumatic conveyers, comprising a body shaped as a parallelepiped and closed with a cover connected thereto so that it can turn. The body accomodates intermediate walls secured near its butt walls and parallel thereto and having slots to accomodate journals of a member pressing goods, which is mounted in the body so that it can turn in the direction of turning of the cover. The member pressing the goods is provided with at least one mechanism for locking it in the course of transportation of piece goods in the container.
The locking mechanism comprises a lever whose one end portion has teeth made therein coaxially with a turning axle secured to the wall of the body through a bracket and engaging a worm mounted in the intermediate wall and extending with its one end portion to the outer surface of the body from the side of the butt wall. The other free end portion of the lever mounts a member secured thereon and engaging a hook provided on the member pressing goods. At the side coming out into the outer surface of the body and in the axial direction the worm is provided with a hole accomodating a detachable handle made as a crank and serving for turning the worm. This turn is made by the operator upon arrival of the container to its destination or upon its sending off. The cover is provided with a spring-loaded latch which holds it in the closed position and engages a holder rigidly secured to the body wall opposite to the one to which the cover is secured. The push button used for engaging the latch with the holder is disposed on the outer side of the container.
The known container is not convenient in operation as, in order to load or unload it, it has to be extracted from the pipe-line and, then, it is necessary to manually open the cover by having pressed the push button and after having inserted the handle into the hole of the worm, to turn the lever in order to release the pressing member. All these operations increase the time required for charging and discharging the container, that substantially decreases the efficiency of the conveyer.
Besides, the force with which the pressing member holds the piece goods in order to prevent their damage in the course of transportation completely depends on the operator, which cannot always provide for a required force of pressing holding the piece goods in the course of transportation.